Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Persistence of Vision

Wow.

The past week has been a level of intensity I can't even begin to describe. I had always said that the recent Horrorfind Weekend would be the coming out party for Women's Studies. However, I had no idea that things would rev up as they had.

It's good though. The light at the end of the tunnel, once just a faint glimmer, gets brighter and brighter with each passing day. Well, that might be an overstatement, but at least I can see the end ahead of me.

First off, the big news: As of earlier today, Women's Studies is picture-locked, which means the video is as it will always be. Hats off to Editor Jim McGivney who has spent the past four months (Nine if you count the "rushes" he edited while we were shooting) putting this thing together for me. He's worked his ass off and I'm damn proud of him. Special mention goes to Cindy Marie Martin who was really a driving force behind the last few editing sessions.

The specs? Women's Studies clocks in at almost exactly 100 minutes, not counting the end credits. (Those will probably add about two minutes to the running time.) That was our target length all along and while Jim and I had to cut a couple of my favorite scenes to get there, I think the right choices were made. The eventual DVD will have eleven deleted scenes ranging from ten seconds to three minutes.

Next up is sound editing and music. I'm not going to spend any time talking about it right now. (Trust me. You'll hear more about it than you ever dreamed over the next seven weeks.)

We've basically got 53 days from the time of this writing to finish the film. That's a ridiculously short amount of time to color-correct and post sound for a feature length film. Should be fun, right? Right?!?

We premiered it at Horrorfind Weekend last weekend to a pretty enthusiastic crowd. At least they seemed to ask all the right questions, so I got the impression they were interested. The response to the online trailer has been pretty positive. We even got a couple film festival invites out of it. (No, I'm not saying where. More on festivals come June.) I have high hopes this film will find it's audience.

Once we get it finished, of course. Let's not put the cart before the horse.

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Just about everybody who knows me knows that George A. Romero is pretty much my filmmaking hero. I'm not exactly sure when it happened. I rediscovered his zombie "trilogy" about ten years ago. (That's back when it was still a trilogy.) That was right around the same time that my mind really started to shift from just writing scripts to actually making movies.

The admirable thing about Romero that has always struck me is his fierce individuality and independence. He makes the movies he wants to make. Yet, it's not out of stubbornness, but rather a persistence of vision which is awe-inspiring. He gets what he's doing, and I think a lot of filmmakers don't. They just feel their way through the process hoping to make the "big time," whatever the hell that is. Hell, I might even be one of them as much as I like to think otherwise.

Romero's persistence of vision and ability to be present is what I aspire to. His indefinable type of filmmaker is the kind I want to be.

Anyway, I got to meet Romero in the flesh during Horrorfind Weekend. We didn't talk long, only about five minutes, but he was present the entire time. We talked about his Season of the Witch a film I think is highly underrated and one he would like to remake. We talked about Women's Studies and working with Judith O'Dea. We even for the briefest of moments talked about our worldviews which was pretty cool. The whole time, he was present. He was talking not just to me but with me.

It was a pretty huge moment for me, one that's going to see me through to the end of the Women's Studies process. Hell, I might even find me some big assed trademark glasses to wear when it's all said and done.